


Beep

by WrtierJC



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:41:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29511963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrtierJC/pseuds/WrtierJC
Summary: A short request. [Two people starving for connection get randomly put into a testing room. The results are unpleasant.]





	Beep

There was a soft, electronic beep. It was the same beep any keypad made on selecting a number. An innocuous, harmless beep. But it's sound startled the two women every time.  
Lauren and Holly weren't beautiful or ugly; they were two plain janes. Lauren was a little heavier, and Holly was a little taller. Two quiet, out of the way girls from different normal, middle of the lane lives.  
There was a beep and a cringe.  
Neither had shared more eye contact with anyone else in the last decade than they had in each other in the last seventeen minutes. They were physically unnerved by the thought of looking each other in the face.   
There was a beep and a start. Every minute, there was a beep. The LCD on the matte black collars each ticked up by one. Now they were on minute seventy seven. The women were seated together at the ice-cold brushed steel table, seated beneath the neutral flourescent light, within the soundproof room.   
Both had already tried to leave. The heavy bolted door was implacable, and neither woman had the means to bypass it's security. They had tried for all of ten minutes before taking to sitting, resigned to quiet and docility.  
At some point both noticed the similarities to interrogation rooms, in the midst of trying to avoid each other.   
Holly and Lauren sat four feet apart, at the table, in their folding chairs, in their clean white clothes.  
A slip of paper slid under the bolted door to their room.  
Holly was closer, so she grabbed it first. She read it twice, then sat down and put it down for Holly.  
In crisp, bold, black font, the card read:

INTERACT TOGETHER  
SMILE AND HAVE FUN  
AT 100, YOU DEPART

They looked at each other, straining to avoid looking directly at each other, and looked at their collars. "E-eighty..."  
"Nine. Eighty nine... Eleven minutes... To go, huh?"  
Holly gulped. Lauren grimaced.  
"So it uh," Lauren started, then froze when Holly looked at her.  
Holly bit her lip and grabbed the back of her neck.  
"...Uhm, looks like, we should interact."  
"Yeah."  
The conversation dwindled into a few hemmings and hawings, then silent wrist wringing and hair twiddling. There came a beep on each, startling them.  
They both looked at the note as it sat on the table. Their eyes drifted to it and then to each other a few times. Holly grimaced at Lauren.   
"Uhm." Holly looked at her hands and presented, "Where do you come from?"  
Lauren stared blankly at the table, then at her and answered, "Oltown."  
"Ah." Holly looked away until Lauren looked away, then resumed looking down at the table.  
"You?"  
Lauren's voice startled her, "M-me?"  
When she looked up, she found Lauren looking at her. "Where do you come from?" She had a serious furrow to her brow and refused to look away, forcing herself to 'interact'.  
Holly answered after a long, stressed pause, "Penburg."  
"Ah." Lauren nodded and gulped. She had no idea where that was.  
Holly quickly nodded as well, "Yeah."  
They maintained eye contact for a moment longer, then looked one at a time at the note and continued talking.  
Holly began, "What do you do?"  
Lauren's head tilted, "For work?"  
"For... For fun." Holly took a quick glance and pointed at the note.  
"Oh..." Lauren hemmed, and shook her head. "Nothing, really. Just netflix and my cat."  
"Oh."  
The beep came again. Lauren grimaced and forced the conversation forward, "You?"  
"Uh, yeah, hulu and my dog."  
"Ah."  
This felt like a bad date from a romcom Lauren had watched. She snorted.  
"What?" Holly's voice halted her and she stopped laughing.  
"It's... It's nothing."  
"You..." Holly spoke slow, "Sure?"  
Lauren sighed and adverted her eyes, "Yeah. This feels like a bad date."  
"Ah." Holly gained a knowing expression as her face fell and she spoke low once more. "Yeah. Sorry about that. I know I'm not fun to talk to."  
"No, no, it's fine, I'm just thought of, it reminded me of this funny movie and it made me... Laugh."  
Beep.  
"...Is that what that was?"  
"Y-yeah. That was me laughing..." Lauren's lip twinged and twitched until a smile formed, and something about the process made Holly snort and laugh.  
"Hey, you don't sound any better.: Lauren snorted, "What's so funny?"  
"You- Me too, I think..." Holly chuckled and covered her laughing lips. "...It looks like you forgot how to grin. I think maybe me, too."  
Lauren's smile drifted downward, but didn't die. "That's too bad." She put both hands on the table and watched Holly. "You have a cute smile."  
Holly paused and smiled again, but hidden behind her hand as she blushed. "S-stop."  
Lauren's smile broadened and her heart skipped a little, "Really, it's true. You, you know, you're cute, and all." Her hands were pressed flat against the table so they didn't tremble and shake.  
Holly, likewise, was visibly tense. Her jaw was clenched, and her legs were crossing and uncrossing.  
Neither had ever considered... Flirting before the strange room.  
Once more, a beep, and Lauren looked over to Holly. She smiled at her as the trembling went up her hands and to her arms. "I'm, I'm kinda nervous. In a good way, I guess."  
Holly's tense smile remained as she nodded. "One minute to go." There was a knock, and she paused to look away, to the door.  
A new note appeared, and this time she grabbed it.  
Holly sat down and set the note for Lauren to read.

ACT LIKE ITS OKAY  
CONTINUE INTERACTING  
AT 120, YOU DEPART

Lauren looked at Holly and cocked her head. "What-?" Red mist appeared, then the sound of the small explosion registered in Holly's mind.  
Holly gawked, and panted. Her lungs were failing. The red mist was already settled in a layer of red over everything.   
Lauren sat across from Holly, and Holly stared at the raw red and black scorched skin of her headless neck.  
There was another beep.  
Holly sniffled and sat still. Nowhere she looked was clean anymore. Her friend slumped forward and the thud startled her into sobbing. She closed her eyes as her jaw clenched in anxious habit. She screamed through grit teeth and cried into shaky hands.  
Holly sat alone in the red and white cell and cried until she heaved.  
Beep.

**Author's Note:**

> For Joey  
> The request:  
> "Two people starving for connection get randomly put into a testing room. They each have neck braces with explosives that *we* know will explode before the story ends, and will explode at any random time."


End file.
